


Gandalf

by BelowBedlam



Series: Above All Shadows [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:18:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3810100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts on Gandalf's connection to Anordis and the South.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gandalf

He falls in love with the great women of the South before Galadriel steals his heart, and presents their daughters (they are never his) with jewel shards from his staff.  _For wisdom and protection,_ He tells their mothers. The daughters are always a bit too young to accept the gifts themselves, and they either stand by their mothers or hang from the the hands of their fathers.

Most of these daughters are dead, now. But the twins remain. He sees the Second in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain, millennia later; she calls him with a cracked tongue from among the fallen soldiers.

_Olórin_

It is his _name_ and he turns to her as though he’d known she was there, hurries to lift her up and take her to safety. He cannot heal her as he’s wanted for so many years, and he cannot apologize because  _he knew_  that the Southern kings–- his great women’s husbands, brothers, fathers–- were too brave, rash to a fault. He knew their fury would outweigh their wisdom, vast as it was. When they fell, he mourned them from afar.  And now the Second lay prone on a battlefield not her own, very much alive.  She calls him “ghost” in that sharp language of hers. He swallows it with his guilt.

He wants to take her with him and teach her how to whisper to the moths and summon birds because he owes her that much, owes her the power to fly. Whatever journey she follows so far from home he could help her, he wants to help her, the little brown half-elven princess who painted her face years before the markings became permanent and glared at the big pale Wizard when he came to call: Maatrys, the Second, daughter of Akilat, amber of eye.

But they are no longer South; she should not be here and he could not reconcile her in this place without breaking her like he’d done his poor burglar. Just as Gandalf knew about his great women’s kings, he knows what comes to the West. He will not abandon a second time. He cannot; Here he is not Olórin, though his heart is still soft.

In the end he gives her to the Elvenking for safe keeping and tends to his burglar.  _May you never forgive me._

_…_

He will see the Second twice more in the West and then forever after in Valinor, where she will finally smile at him and call his unfettered form lovely. They will tell each other of the histories they’ve witnessed. They will sing among the Valar.

 She will often speak of her sister, but he never sees the First again.


End file.
